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Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

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Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#271

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

ch4s3 wrote: post #208
ramesh31 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And before we hear any cries of, "Iraq was different," recall that it was an illegal war of aggression that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, led to large scale torture, and generally caused a monumental societal collapse in Iraq. I've been trying to come to terms with this since the invasion of Ukraine. Yes, the details on the ground are significantly different. But it doesn't change the legal r…

You’d definitely made the right decision for yourself, and possibly in the general case. I’d add that while the bursts of hawkishness in US foreign policy are awful, they pale in comparison to the barbarism of other past powers or modern regional powers. That isn’t meant to excuse anything, but look at the Russian invasion and the intentional atrocities being committed. Compare that to the invasion of Iraq and I thin…

I cannot see how one can claim that the US invasion of Iraq was less barbaric than the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

First of all, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. The US practiced torture, as we all found out when the pictures of Abu Ghraib came out. The US worked with Shiite militias that conducted ethnic cleansing and torture on a massive scale. The US put down uprisings in places like Sadr City, Najaf and Fallujah with full urban ground invasions. As a result of the invasion, Baghdad turned into a warzone for years, and the city's religiously mixed neighborhoods were ethnically cleansed (or however you refer to its religious equivalent). Iraq became a byword for failed state.

Finally, I would tell anyone who talks about "values" to take a look at the "Collateral Murder" video, in which helicopter pilots crack jokes while shooting explosive rounds into the windshield of a van full of children.[0] Only two people have gone to jail for that: the soldier who leaked the video (Manning) and the guy who published it (Assange).

0. https://youtu.be/zYTxuW2vmzk

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#272

Post by ajross »

brabel wrote: post #260
gambiting wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's completely obvious - Poland and its 50 million citizens depend on the Norway->Poland gas pipeline for having any gas this winter at all. Blowing up Nordstream is clearly a signal from Russia that if we don't stop pushing back on Ukraine, then that pipeline is next to go. That's how I read it anyway.

To me, it's completely obvious the truth is the exact opposite. I feel like only someone who is no longer thinking rationally can claim that Russia would blow up their own pipeline and make it impossible, even after hostilities cease (yes, they will cease one day, they always do... or are you still hostile to Germany?), to get billions and billions of easy Euro flowing down on its coffers. If you know history you sho…

> If you know history you should understand that a "small" even like this, in a highly volatile situation like we have now, could easily trigger an irrational war no one can win to start. I would think that Putin knows that very well

Isn't the very existence of a ground war in Ukraine clear evidence that Putin does not "know that very well"? Your point seems to be "Putin clearly won't escalate because he already escalated". That seems poorly grounded.

And in any case the logic seems generic anyway; you can make that argument about literally any theory about "Who Blew Up Nordstream?". If you think Putin is risk-averse, why do you think western governments aren't? You really think Biden is going rogue over this but you... trust Putin to be a steady hand at the tiller?

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#273

Post by qqqwerty »

thaufeki wrote: post #176
nosianu wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Question: could Russian disinformation have played a role in germanys policy here? As a German, no, that was quite voluntary. People like me completely agreed. I only woke up on 24 February. I'm from East Germany, speak some Russian, and have been to Russia a few times, and to Ukraine too, for months actually. I did not care about the Krim annexation either. I think because it was peaceful, and because I did not se…

>Maybe they want Putin to invest more and more and grind Russia down slowly? Losing too quickly would leave Russia with too much left? Of course, the cost of such a strategy would be borne by the Ukrainians, who pay in blood. I think this has been the conventional wisdom for a while. One thing I ask people who are vociferous in their support of Ukraine (and our paying for that support) is, how is this going to end? R…

Russia has a history of throwing out leaders after failed wars. On one hand Putin appears to have a fairly tight grip on power right now, but it doesn't take much to actually execute a coup. A small group of of participants to capture or kill him, and maybe one or two handshake agreements with one of the many security or military forces might be enough. There is a reason Putin has been spending most of this war in his bunker after all. It is certainly not because he fears attacks from Ukraine. He know this war has greatly eroded his leverage over the oligarchs and as such he is acting accordingly.

Of course it is hard to even put a probability on something like this happening, but I think most folks are underestimating the odds. It is one of those things that feels very unlikely to happen, until it actually happens.

However, I do think that the highest probability outcome is Ukraine and Russia end up roughly where they were before the invasion, perhaps with slightly different boundaries. If you were not aware Russia and Ukraine have been at war for 8 years. For most of the years, it was effectively a stalemate, with a handful skirmishes to remind each other of the others presence. And the rest of the world for the most part carried on with business as usual. If feel like this is the most likely scenario, and if this is where we end up, I think it was 100% worth the cost as it means Ukraine maintains self-determination and Russia likely learns a really hard lesson regarding its Imperialistic ambitions.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#274

Post by gambiting »

brabel wrote: post #260
gambiting wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's completely obvious - Poland and its 50 million citizens depend on the Norway->Poland gas pipeline for having any gas this winter at all. Blowing up Nordstream is clearly a signal from Russia that if we don't stop pushing back on Ukraine, then that pipeline is next to go. That's how I read it anyway.

To me, it's completely obvious the truth is the exact opposite. I feel like only someone who is no longer thinking rationally can claim that Russia would blow up their own pipeline and make it impossible, even after hostilities cease (yes, they will cease one day, they always do... or are you still hostile to Germany?), to get billions and billions of easy Euro flowing down on its coffers. If you know history you sho…

I mean, the problem here is that you basically assumed what my position is and then argued against it, but it isn't based on anything that I have said so far.

The only point I want to address is that I really don't believe Putin is acting rationally in this war. Nothing he has done has been rational. If he cared about the billions of euro flowing through those pipes, he simply wouldn't have attacked Ukraine in the first place. Judging him by what he's done in the past is pointless - he has congratulated and praised Zelensky when he was elected, now suddenly the guy is a fascist neo-nazi? Putin has military objectives and he won't stop until he achieves them. I wouldn't support an all our NATO Vs Russia war, but I do think that Putin shouldn't be allowed to annex parts of Ukraine just because he wants to - because yes, as a Polish man that triggers a very deep response, response that tells me that at some point, maybe not now but at some point, he will come and just declare that portions of Poland are now Russian. The comparison to Germany isn't really relevant here because Germany isn't attacking its neighbours currently like Russia is - but if it was I'd feel the same for very similar reasons.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#275

Post by avgcorrection »

mrtksn wrote: post #74
scifibestfi wrote: post #61

"Russia's decision to halt gas supplies via Europe's key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has increased the chances of power shortages." Europe's decision, Germany especially, to be reliant on Russia for energy when they could have not shut down nuclear plants and built more.

This place started to think in memes I feel. Every issue comes with the automated arguments, the same ones every time. If the topic is energy someone must write the "they shouldn't have closed those Nuclear power plants, silly environmentalist". Anyway, France is full blown nuclear state and they are having energy issues too, because as it turns out nuclear power plants require long regular maintenance periods. Maybe…

HN doesn’t think in memes more than before. It’s just you who percieve commenters to be NPCs because the same things keep getting upvoted.

> Maybe EU wanted to have Russia as a reliable petrostate as an alternative to the USA so they can do their thing without USA?

Considering the EU’s actions since the war started we can safely discard this theory.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#276

Post by Rexxar »

mc32 wrote: post #113
Rexxar wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show everybody that you can to it on other pipelines while doing it only on a currently useless one (I answer the question by giving one possible advantage, I have no opinion on the real cause at the moment)

There is little value in crazy showing crazy can do crazy things. We know crazy can do crazy. It like Kim, jung-un --it does not have to show us it is willing to lob a nuke, we know it would lob one if if needed to for self-preservation. These are rational actors, their reasoning might be foreign to us and operate differently, but they act within their own rational frameworks.

> There is little value in crazy showing crazy can do crazy things

There can be some strategical value in some situation to be perceived as crazy.

> These are rational actors

Probably but it's not 100% guaranteed

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#277

Post by ch4s3 »

LeanderK wrote: post #262
ch4s3 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for dictators, economic costs are a real barrier. You can’t loot from a broken economy in the future or build vanity projects if there’s no money. Economic interdependence constrains authoritarians as well, just a bit less.

I think it is all a game of perception. If you think you can muscle your way through, either quickly enough so that no harm is done to your economy/population until your goal is reached or if you perceive a weakness in the opposition, a fear of taking action against you, then you see the move as possible. I think the line of thought that economic (co-)dependence makes conflict impossible or leads to a more harmonious…

I don’t think that’s the strongest version of the argument. I would boil it down to something along the lines of economic relatedness building roadblocks and off-ramps on the way to conflict. Trade gives some opportunities for low risk retaliation that can be hashed out and deescalated prior to any shooting happening. It presents resistance that can slow things down. It obviously can’t prevent a determined large nation from barreling through, but it’s a layer of defense.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#278

Post by avgcorrection »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #103
scifibestfi wrote: post #61

"Russia's decision to halt gas supplies via Europe's key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has increased the chances of power shortages." Europe's decision, Germany especially, to be reliant on Russia for energy when they could have not shut down nuclear plants and built more.

There is a penn and teller episode where they argued that globalization was creating world peace. Basically, when everyone’s economies are so entangled, they said, nobody would want to go to war because of how expensive it would be. Their model, I think, only works for democracies. When a dictator controls a country, and their quality of life remains unchanged and revolves mostly around delusions of grandeur (like an…

> globalization was creating world peace.

Wait. I thought their brand was about making fun of BS? Did they peddle BS themselves as an ironic gesture?

> Their model, I think, only works for democracies.

Like the nominal democracy the US of A?

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#279

Post by colechristensen »

origin_path wrote: post #187
mrtksn wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is not obvious, it's obvious only to zealots. It's kind of obvious that the solution is in PHV and wind energy but you can fight it to death with people who would claim that it's obvious that the solution is Nuclear energy. This is not a good discussion, this is fanatics fighting. Anytime someone suggest simple solution to a big problem %99.9 of the time they don't actually have a simple and obvious solu…

Pumped hydro is very limited and most resources are already exploited. Wind energy is not a solution because sometimes it just doesn't appear when you need it. Nuclear actually is a solution, in the sense that if you implement it, the problem will go away. Renewables are not a solution in the sense that even if you over-implement to an absurd degree, with present technology the problem will sometimes remain. The peop…

This is an overdone and incorrect response.

Variable renewable sources can’t power 100% of the grid, but they can easily power 80% of it without any of the normal whatabout problems. Renewables could also power 120% of the grid without problems, interesting variable loads to take up the extra very cheap energy would manifest soon enough.

Claiming exactly 100% is full of problems is true, pedantic, and nowhere close to any reality which would happen.

Of course there will be a mixture of power sources, relax. You can develop a lot of variable renewables before the issues come up.

Europe needs to develop every power source at the same time, distributing resources compromising for risk, several time frames, and cost. This involves a solar/wind heavy mix along with longer term nuclear developments and large scale energy imports from North America.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#280

Post by avgcorrection »

Rexxar wrote: post #107
mc32 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the advantage of blowing up a pipeline over simply shutting the valve when you control the valve AND supply?

Show everybody that you can to it on other pipelines while doing it only on a currently useless one (I answer the question by giving one possible advantage, I have no opinion on the real cause at the moment)

As a show of force I will destroy one of my own battalions. Watch out world: I could do the same to yours!
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